"Precious", which sees songstress Mariah Carey as an old-fashioned social worker, is the first announced Gala Presentation. The Nicolas Cage-starring "Bad Lieutenant" and the South Korean entry for the 82nd Academy Awards "Mother", in the meantime, mark the return of directors Herzog and Joon-ho to the festival.

In addition to those three mentioned movies, the freshly announced line-up include French/Italian co-productions, "A Prophet" and "Vincere"; Claude Chabrol's "Bellamy"; Maren Ade's "Everyone Else"; Michael Hoffman's "The Last Station"; Ken Loach's "Looking for Eric"; Corneliu Porumboiu's "Police, Adjective"; and Harmony Korine's "Trash Humpers". The Red Riding trilogy of films by Julian Jarrold, James Marsh and Anand Tucker will also be screened.

Commenting on the first official selections, festival artistic director Rose Kuo stated, "These first dozen titles offer a wonderful preview to our lineup, which is a survey of the year's significant films. They represent a diversity of voices, and we take great pride in being able to bring them to Los Angeles audiences for the first time."

AFI Fest 2009 will run from October 30 to November 7. The festival will have the movies screened at the Chinese Theater and Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, before moving to Santa Monica for the final two days of screenings in association with the American Film Market. It will debut its "See a Film on Us" initiative, which offers complimentary tickets to all films, including a limited number of seats to each Gala Presentation.